Copyright 2016 Julie Laut
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Copyright 2016 Julie Laut INDIA AT THE UNITED NATIONS: A POSTCOLONIAL NATION-STATE ON THE GLOBAL STAGE, 1945-1955 BY JULIE LAUT DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2016 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Professor Antoinette Burton, Chair Professor Kristin Hoganson Assistant Professor Rini Bhattacharya Mehta Professor Mrinalini Sinha, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor ABSTRACT Prior to Indian independence, the Indian National Congress made savvy use of the United Nations as a global stage upon which to establish a sense of inevitability around postcolonial Congress leadership despite the uncertainty of post-independence power sharing in New Delhi. The aspirational postcolonial state staked its claim to moral leadership through anticolonial propaganda, the prominent UN delegate Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit’s self-representation of modern Indian womanhood, and highly gendered emotional discourses over the issue of racial oppression. Once faced with the realpolitik of a fragmented and bloody independence, however, nationalist idealism had to be balanced against the pragmatics of state building. The Indian state, focused on the consolidation of power at home and maintaining legitimacy in the international arena, at times placed domestic concerns above the ideals of the United Nations, becoming complicit in the reinforcement of the nation-state system. The extent of the postcolonial state’s affiliation with inherited imperialist aggression was minimized through evasive diplomatic maneuvers and the suppression of information. And as Cold War ideologies clashed at the UN after the Korean War broke out, Pandit and India became caught up in the masculine competition between nation-states. This evolving relationship between the postcolonial Indian state and the emergent United Nations produced the foundations of UN postcolonialism – a gendered cultural construct that emerged in the early years of the UN through both the emotional high of the postcolonial moment and the contradictions of decolonization at the start of the Cold War. This cultural approach argues for a shift away from the more mechanistic organizational histories of the United Nations that fail to consider fully how and where power is produced. ii To Julian and Celia iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Teachers and mentors from many different institutions have enriched my intellectual life. David Johnson at Portland State University provided enthusiastic encouragement early in my grad school career. During my master’s training at Miami University, I had the opportunity to work with a number of teachers and historians who provided a crucial foundation in feminist and comparative women’s world histories, including Renée Baernstein, Yihong Pan, Mary Frederickson, Kimberly Hamlin, and Judith P. Zinsser. I am also thankful to the many professors at the University of Illinois who supported me and influenced the formation of my research project, including Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Theresa Barnes, Augusto Espiritu, Tamara Chaplin, and Dana Rabin. Thanks also to James Brennan who introduced me to the endlessly fascinating Indian Ocean World and provided valuable feedback on my dissertation proposal and early chapter drafts. The staff librarians in the History, Philosophy, and Newspaper Library and the International and Area Studies Library provided friendly help with finding, storing, and utilizing a wide variety of research materials. The University of Illinois library system is second to none, and without it’s vast resources I would not have been able to conduct my research while staying close to home. The completion of this work would not have been possible without the financial support of the Bastian Fellowship in Global History, the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, and the William C. Widenor Teaching Fellowship. I am grateful for the collaborative and insightful conversations that emerged through working with the members of my dissertation committee, Kristin Hoganson, Rini Bhattacharya iv Mehta, and Mrinalini Sinha. Their critiques, questions, and conversations helped me better understand how my project works as a whole when I too often got lost in the details. My adviser Antoinette Burton spent a great deal of time thinking deeply with me about gender, empire, and historical analysis over the last seven plus years. The many big, unanswerable-in-the-moment questions she asked during our conversations prompted exciting leaps forward in the development of my research. I thank her for her intellectual engagement with my work and for her on-going support as I embark on my next adventure. Over the years many young women cared for Julian and Celia so that I could study and write. I could not have completed this project without them. I am lucky to have been blessed with great friends and a wonderfully supportive family. Ellen Urbani has offered unwavering moral support for almost fifteen years and helps me remember just how far I have come whenever I start to forget. Dharitri Bhattacharjee brought me laughter and friendship during our time together at Miami, and prompted a fantastic Indian adventure. Vanessa De Los Reyes was a close friend and confidante at Miami. Christina Ceisel saw me through a lot when I moved to Illinois, and along with Brian Dolber she admirably embraced the spirit of Deck Club. Ben Poole shares great music and great food with us; I cherish our on-going friendship. Erin-Marie Legacey provided emergency childcare, baked us endless amounts of fresh baked bread, and, despite moving far away, continues to share life’s ups and downs with me. I am profoundly grateful to Meliah Masiba who entered our lives as a caretaker in 2003, but has since become family. I can never fully repay her for the year she provided stability for my children and our household despite the sands shifting under our feet. I will never tire of pouring a glass of wine, putting my elbows on the table, and talking with her all night long. v My relationship with Judith Zinsser has become a cherished friendship. I value her advice on academia and life, and appreciate her encouragement every step of the way. Copyediting this document in the living room of Judith’s writing studio, warmed by the fire and surrounded by her books, was the perfect place to wind up this stage of my academic career. Thanks also to my favorite trivia team members: Sue Tolman and Jared Bronski, and Jim Hansen and Renée Trilling. The time we spend together brings me great joy, as does getting to watch their fabulous daughters grow up. My parents, Wayne and Mary Laut, have been remarkably supportive of my mid-life career shift and the unique challenges it brought my way. I am grateful especially for the several many trips they made from Colorado to help over the years, including a long visit from Mom as I made the final push before my defense. Their love and support sustains me, and I am proud to share this accomplishment with them. Perhaps the best thing that happened to me in the last decade occurred when I re-met my fourth grade boyfriend, Marc Holtorf, and I found out that not only had he gotten a lot taller since the last time I saw him, but after all these years he didn’t just like me, he “liked” me liked me. Now he has become my partner and my best friend. Lucky me! Julian and Celia have grown up during this journey. I dedicate my work to them for being my center, for keeping me grounded, and reminding me what is most important in life. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1 1. Rehearsal of UN Postcolonialism: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit at the UN Conference on International Organization, 1945…………………………………………….23 2. Race, Gender, and Emotion at the Birth of the United Nations General Assembly, 1946………………………………………………………………………………54 3. Resisting the Global Stage: Postcolonial Nation-Building, the Invasion of Hyderabad, and the UN Security Council, 1948……………………………………………104 4. Performing Masculinity: Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, Indian Peacekeeping, and the Gendered Embodiment of Nonalignment, 1953…….………………………………….155 5. The Legacies of UN Postcolonialism………………………………………………………205 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………215 vii INTRODUCTION Indian Congress nationalism and postcolonial internationalism have cast a long shadow over scholarship on India at the birth of the United Nations. The historiography that accounts for them has produced a narrative of Indian exceptionalism that emerges from the ethically elevated path of the Gandhian independence movement and arrives, apparently fully formed, at the UN. The timeline for this story typically begins with Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit fighting for an end to colonialism and racial oppression from the periphery of the UN Charter conference in 1945, and moves in linear fashion toward the Nehruvian foreign policy objectives that allowed India to exercise moral leadership on the global stage via the UN. This project argues that such a neat arc and the cogent and palatable story of India’s historical relationship with the United Nations it tells is not the whole story. It virtually ignores the reality of decolonization, minimizing India’s self-interest and military power as well as other fractious geopolitical issues that interrupt the clean lines of India’s transition from a colonial possession to an aspiring postcolonial world power. What’s more, the central role of gender and emotion in the production of the postcolonial nation-state through the UN is invisible in this dominant account. As my research shows, prior to independence, the Indian National Congress made savvy use of the United Nations as a global stage upon which to establish a sense of inevitability around postcolonial Congress leadership despite the uncertainty of post-independence power sharing in New Delhi. The aspirational postcolonial state staked its claim to moral leadership through anticolonial propaganda, Pandit’s self-representation of elite, modern Indian womanhood, and highly gendered emotional discourses over the issue of racial oppression.